I forgive you.
Praise be to God.
However, I disagree completely with your point. It neglects the gospel and focuses on works righteousness. It is based on doubt in God's power, and rooted in faith in man's mind. This is not to say that counseling is wrong or that a Christian cannot use it. I do not hold that position at all. But "With God, all things are possible." Forget not, "He shall be called...Wonderful Counselor."
Christ has said, "Ask for anything in my name and it will be granted to you."
And James says, "You do not have because you do not ask. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."
That goes for spending one's life, as well as one's riches.
I do not disagree with you in saying that simply walking into a psychotherapists office and telling all the depressed people "Jesus loves" them will not likely make them feel better. That is more than foolishness, for that is not the True and complete gospel (That is only half the good news. It ignores the Law and its conviction which is what brings ones need for grace into an understanding which can accept it.) EVEN SO, that hardly makes suicide acceptable in God's eyes. As I have said, it doesn't matter how sin kills you, if you die in it and rejecting Christ, your dead in it and without Christ.
We are so quick to forget that all salvation is by God's grace alone and through His work alone. He is just and He will "have mercy upon whom He will have mercy." Nothing we say or do can change that fact.
Did not Christ say to the blind and lame, "See!" and "Walk!" Can He not then heal the many hurts caused by our prideful depression and self-pity? If He came not to save us from our sinfulness, then what did He come for?
Christ is no magic charm. But His grace heals. Sometimes it does take time. Sometimes it does take therapy. But it doesn't ALWAYS take time and therapy. And surely, the Spirit of God would not cast itself out of a redeemed soul by murdering itself. Only our sin can do that, and we are warned against it more than once in Scripture. It IS possible to "shipwreck" the faith.
The True Gospel is not always what people want to hear. But that changes nothing. We can do nothing to save ourselves. That is for Christ alone to do. But we can surely condemn ourselves by our thoughts, words and deeds, by what we do, and by what we leave undone.
Praise be to Christ the Lord for His mercy upon me, a poor sinner who deserves to be cast into ghenna. May He pour out His mercy abundantly on all who are in need of it. And may He in doing so open our hearts to the glorious and freeing Truth, that we may understand the urgency of the gospel, and not hesitate even a moment in sharing it with the nations, including our own.
Peace
?
He says, "[All unrightousness is sin, and there IS A SIN NOT UNTO DEATH.]"
